This invention relates to a method for providing confidential treatment for facsimile transmissions using standard facsimile machines which are not provided with built-in coding and decoding systems.
All types of businesses, both small and large, have incorporated fax machines as a necessary element in doing business. Fax machines have their own telephone lines and in many cases are stationed in central locations of a business, for example, in a copy or mail room or otherwise accessible to a large number of people in the business. Accordingly, the fax messages are readily accessible and readable by many or all levels of the employees of the business. There are times when sensitive messages are received where a certain amount of confidentiality is desirable, if not required. One solution to the problem is to provide a fax machine which actually incorporates coding and decoding equipment. Such machines are expensive and are not normally required in the ordinary business as usual transmissions.
Accordingly, it would desirable to provide selected confidential treatment for facsimile transmissions which do not require separate machines, telephone lines or special fax equipment for encrypting and decrypting the facsimile transmissions.